The Grandchildren Walk the Dog

I suppose it was my daughter's sly sense of humor that led her to name her younger children Aaron and Miriam, but that's not today's subject. Aaron will be 5 in August, Miriam is 2.5, and they came to our house on Friday, for a week, with their big sister Analise, who was 7 in April, and who is slightly burdened by these younger sibs. Especially Aaron, who is fully a boy, and is as intrusive as young boys are at this age, on the cusp between unabated curiousity and self-actualization not yet mitigated by self-consciousness or shame.

Friday afternoon I was telephoned and asked me to walk my friend's white German shepherd Cabal, and it suddenly seemed like a really good idea to take all 3 grands and NOT exhausted Izzie. Izzie protested weakly, but I took all three, in their car seats, on a tour of the south of Menomonie, and then past the strawberry field at Irvington, to see if we could pick this morning. We could, and they had 2 buckets of fresh strawberries still to sell, so I bought one. $15, a bargain.

The chickens snacked on strawberries while we went to the dog. They like dogs, but Miriam was a bit spooked by this dog who is taller at the withers than her shoulders.

My friend's property is adjoined to the Valley of Gilbert Creek, a lovely wooded valley cut into clay bluffs, between which trickles, runs, or tumbles (depending on the wetness of the season (dramatic pause) Gilbert Creek. He has caused long paths to be created and maintained through the valley and along the creek, a lovely place to walk. Along the creek is a suspension footbridge, and near the west end of the paths, a glade with 4 bee hives.

The expeditionary force set off: a 7 year old self-assured girl, her distractable, interruptible small brother, and the geezer in loafers and shorts, carrying a timid little girl in his right arm and holding a purple leash in his left hand, being towed down the steep slippery hill behind the garage by the white German shepherd. We made it. Cabal, by the way, was the name of King Arthur's once and future dog.

The suspension footbridge was discovered and played upon. It's quite fun to jump up and down while crossing it, though for two of them to jump dys-synchronously creates risk for both of them, above the rushing waters. I was stuck on shore, holding the dog's leash in one hand and Miriam upon the other arm, making cautionary bleatings.

Eventually Miriam *had* to cross it by herself. She did allow Analise to guide her, and Aaron thankfully did not jump on it while she crossed (though he more than thought about it).

A board had come loose at the near end of the bridge, which captured the attention of the Young Engineer. He knelt to see if he could repair it's position. He knelt, grabbed one end, and in about three seconds, he suddenly was upended, his legs and feet flashing straight up, his head and shoulders down in the missing board's slot.

Fortunately, the gap was over the steep bank at the near end, so he didn't fall in the water, just tumbled a few inches onto a log. He was pretty startled, but crawled back up onto the bridge with minimal help from his big sister.

We had a long, desultory walk after that. Grampa finally got tired of carrying the Young Lady on one arm or the other, and discovered everyone was happier and more comfortable with her on his shoulders.

The only wrinkle during the rest of the long walk occurred when the Young Engineer, who'd been stoic about his tumble through the bridge, brushed his knee on a nettle, and spent the next five minutes noisily weeping. But 2 hours later, when he told Gramma about the trip, he said that the tumble "hurt really bad" and forgot to mention the nettle. :)

This seems to have started a love affair with the dog for the little-est urchin. "Walk Cabal?" she says every few hours. So Saturday we surprised the friend's teenage daughter and her comrades by showing up at 6. We took a short walk, to the swinging bridge and the bee glade.

Sunday, only the two younger ones wanted to go. Miriam wanted to start the walk on my shoulders, and away we went, down past the barn, through the valley, along the corn field, Cabal towing me hard, because I was lagging so as not to lose sight of Aaron. For all his hyperactivity, he does stop to smell the flowers. We went slowly through the former bee-glade, and down the hill along the rope. Aaron was trailing all the way, and at the bottom I took a risk.

"Aaron. Would you like to hold the leash?"

Yes of course! So I showed him to put the loop around his shoulder and hold the plastic handle with both hands, and bated my breath to see how fast Cabal would tow him, and whether he'd be able to stay afoot.

Amazing! Cabal walked slowly, gently, hardly pulling. They walked together to the southeast end of the universe, and back to the swinging bridge, almost 40 minutes at Aaron's pace. We crossed the bridge, including Miriam ("My own self!!"), who managed to get over and back without falling through or off.

This triumph complete, she decided it was time to hold the leash herself. I confess that I did not trust Cabal to sense what was right for her, and he was acting more frisky now that we were west of the bridge (perhaps there was bear scent earlier, who knows? I am not counting on Cabal to defend me from the bear, based on his kind demeanor).

So... I hooked a finger under Cabal's collar, and we all walked at *Miriam's* pace - extremely slowly - onward to the bee-glade, and past, I was getting a little tired, so I said cheerfully, "Shall we take Cabal to his house?" The little lady said, "No, house!" At about this time, the children discovered, with slight adult help, that if they said "sit" and gently laid a hand on Cabal's haunches, he would sit. They enjoyed this for awhile, and then discovered that they also needed to learn how to get him to un-sit. This was an easy problem to solve.

And so it came to pass that we crept along the alternate path through the woods, past the swinging bridge, to the steep ascend to the house.

We had been walking over an hour now, and I was tired if the kids were not. I suggested taking Cabal to his house. "No, house" said Miriam. So I resorted to deceit. "Shall we climb the hill?"

She smiled and nodded. "Climb hill! Stairs!" she said. And so, she holding the leash, and I with a finger still hooked in Cabal's collar, we climbed the hill and the stairs "my own self", with a little boost from Grampa at the taller steps. She does not object to being helped with difficult things, as long as she's allowed to give an unimpeded try herself.

We took Cabal into the house, and found rice and chicken, though not in tupperware, and fed him. The children patiently squatted by him while he ate, carefully observing and commenting on his progress until he was quite finished.

After that, we played with Cabal for the space of about half an hour, at which point Isabelle telephoned to ask if we were going to come home for supper before bedtime. The little lady said, "No, home!" but was gently overruled, and tried to kiss Cabal goodbye. He didn't quite understand what she wanted, and I didn't know how to guide him to a proper response.

August 5, 2009 - The Other Granchildren Also Walk...

Today I took the day off work and play, and spent it with the North Carolina grandchildren.

First we crossed the big ditch by my house and explored the tall corn, to a child standing as sequoias thick and green, and mysteriously in rows in which you could get lost from sight, but not from turning around and going back.

Then we walked down to the lake and stirred sticks in the soupy algae. This has inordinate fascination for children and ex-children.

Next, we went in the van to Cabal's house and said hello to Mary and her dog, and took Cabal for a walk along The Path of Gilbert Creek Vale. Cabal again kept pace with whomever was holding his lead, slowly and gently when the littlest one was behind (except forgetting himself and running if an older child raced ahead), pulling v-e-r-y hard when this geezer held the lead.

Cabal is the loveliest excuse for a walk! Especially with grandchildren, to whom he's fascinating.

We did not go to The End of the Earth today because Luke, 2 1/2, needed to be carried by his mother much of the time, and this was taxing to her. We did wade in the creek. Getting one's feet wet is obligatory when near clear lively water.

I saved The Swinging Bridge for the last part of the walk, so that the journey toward the End of the Earth would not seem anticlimactic. They delightedly spent a great deal of time on it.

We spent more than an hour and a half, until noon, on the walk, and the children seemed completely content. It was about ten minutes too long, a good thing in that no one complained when we emerged by the garage onto the lawn.

Then we went to Sweetland Farms for milk and cream, and to the Farmers' Market for raspberries and blueberries, and then we all came home for lunch and Grampa had a nap.

Grandma could not attend because of her injuries. She is up and walking today. She really does well with a low continuous narcotic aboard. We have kept a sitter handy at all times to hinder her from lifting and doing other actual work. This has been only partially successful.

Grandchildren are more interesting than computers

Around about 1980, a new doc came to town, and said, "Dan, you've *got* to buy an Apple computer!" College Fortran programming and punch cards were still a vivid recollection, I was overwhelmed with kids and doctoring, and said, "No!" Then the word processing program arrived, and I've been bearing the computer burden for lo these 28 years. They are very, very useful tools, but are sometimes as demanding, cryptic, and wayward as any 2 year old child -- and not nearly as much fun. I write much better than I golf...

This weekend Jeremiah and Laura embarked on a one-week anniversary trip before he goes off for a couple of months to Arizona and Bulgaria for his summer law-school internship (if that's the right word for a hegira like this), and both sets of grandparents were roped and hog-tied. Her folks had the light duty: Sunday morning through Monday PM, his folks drove from KS during this time, and are on duty for the week while her folks go off to Manhattan to attend Public Entertainment.

We had a St. Paul Chamber Orchestra concert scheduled for Sunday afternoon. Grampa was nominated to take one child instead of Gramma. So Grampa tightened his suspenders, hitched up his coveralls, and changed 2 adult tickets in the peanut gallery for 1 adult and 2 children in the middle of the main floor. It seemed right to take Aaron. This 4.7 year old does have pitch, and scrapes recognizable tunes on his quarter-scale violin, and began singing long before he could talk. I remember a 20-minute walk to the deli in Oxford when he was about 18 months old, and he sang all the way down and all the way back. In April, we took Analise to the opera (Pinocchio), and he wept piteously until I said, "Aaron, Grampa has an opera at home, and you can watch it on TV when you come." Two or three weeks later, I put on Thais, and he sat in the chair. After about 10 minutes, his big sister said, "This is bore-ing," and decamped for the outdoors. Aaron watch 2.5 acts with rapt attention except for 2 bathroom breaks. This is something that it would be cruel not to nurture.

I picked up the 4.7 year old and the 7.1 year old and headed off to lunch with Maia (11) and Jenny (adult, a musician). Maia quickly joined the caravan, as she and Mom had tickets for the same concert. Mom drove alone. Grampa now had 3.

Fortunately, we had the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th seats from the aisle, and the 1st seemed not to have been sold, so all 3 kids sat with Grampa. There was a great deal of bouncing around by Aaron (4.7) - the man next to him said, after about 5 minutes, "He's really enjoying that seat!" But I told them they must be still and quiet when the music started. And they were. Furthermore, their hearing aids did not squeal, their cell phones did not ring, they did not cough or sneeze during quiet passages, they didn't whisper about the dramatic stuff, and when Aaron fell asleep during the adagio of the first piece, Brahms's Sextet #2 in G for strings, he neither stirred nor snored.

The Brahms is 41 minutes, and this was followed by the 25-minute Schumann Cello Concerto in a. Afterward they all said they enjoyed it, and they all paid attention. After intermission, there was only one piece, the 27-minute Mendelssohn Symphony #4 in A (Italian), a perky, fast piece for the most part. Aaron spent part of that piece on my lap, and just as I was truly wondering where his attention was, he perked up and started bowing (in mime). I guess his Suzuki is sinking in. He did this again during the last movement, a presto that was very perky.

Maia was wearing a long skirt, and she showed Analise that if you push your knees away from each other, the skirt turns into sort of a trampoline, and you can take turns bouncing your hand off the fabric. A nice, quiet way to burn energy during the long slow passages.

After the concert, we waited for Jenny's sister Elsa, a violinist, who said that the orchestra had noticed the little kids in the audience and how good they were, and hoped they'd be back again. This made Analise feel grown up. A good thing.

During the drive back to Hudson, there was a sign over the roadway, "Thank you for buckling up." Analise said, "That's stupid. Why do they thank people for what they have to do?" I was glad for this, as this is a problem my family has had for generations (I think). I said, "Analise, do you feel good when someone says 'thank you' when you've done something you have to?" A pause. Then, "Yes." May it sink in.

Gramma, meanwhile, took the 2.4 year old Miriam to Como Zoo. She is an observer, sitting in her stroller and gazing. Once they came to a goldfish pond, where Miriam meditated upon the goldfish for fifteen minutes. Every five minutes or so, Gramma would say, "Are you ready to go?" and Miriam simply said "no." Finally Miriam said, "All done," arose, and turned away. Powers of concentration that would shame some adults.

Afterward, Izzie took Miriam shopping for new shoes. This did not take a long time. She knew exactly what she wanted; fortunately, she was willing to believe Gramma on which ones were the wrong size. I heard about this from Miriam, while I was clipping her into her infant seat. She put her right index finger on a small pink sandal and said, "New."

We didn't get home with all the kit and kaboodle until 7 pm, about bedtime, so Grampa made the ridiculous suggestion that we eat at Culvers to save time. We struggled out of there after 8, due to the fact that the grandchildren do enjoy their food sedately. Research has shown that sedate eaters are not obese. Six out of six grandkids are sedate eaters. May their kind proliferate. (But not before college!)

Today Gramma spent most of the morning in the flower garden; the 3 grands were allowed to plant flowers. Let me say that anything worth doing goes 3x as slowly with kids, and with half the quality - but if they're really allowed to do some of the work themselves, they're about six inches taller when it's done.

About 11, Grampa saw Analise sampling the rhubarb, and got the bright idea they might make a rhubarb custard pie. (Think key lime pie with rhubarb juice.) So...Analise harvested the rhubarb, chopped the stems with a big knife, ran the blender, with some assistance to make the rhubarb feed into the blades, pressed out the juice, and ran the mixer.

She wanted to crack the eggs and separate the yolks, but we discovered that if the yolk must survive the experience intact and the whites remain uncontaminated, and the whole bit is to stay off the floor, then this should not be your *first* egg-cracking experience. Then the whites don't whip up, especially if you jump the gun a little on adding sugar, and Grampa had to go the store for more eggs. A good thing, in this case, because it gave time for the custard to cool and set up before we laid on the meringue (yes, I know custard pies don't traditionally have a meringue, but we had these egg whites and yearned for meringue.

The pie was OK. Helping made Analise feel grown up, which is more than OK.

She said, after the gardening and before the pie, "Grampa, I wish I could live here all the time. You and Gramma do so many things. We don't do anything at home." I'm pretty sure "not anything" means "nothing new", and might include work.

Miriam is a two year old, and is quite sentient. She is allergic to eggs. I cooked up the first, failed, meringue as an experiment (it turned out like flat, flexible meringue), I handed her a bit and said, "Here, taste this and tell Analise and Aaron if it's good enough to eat." She bit off a tiny sliver, and said, "It's good." I walked away stupidly, and she said, "Egg. No." And she handed me the piece. A child shall lead them...

She is very quiet, but very clear. "Lap." means what you think it does. It's not quite a command, but what Grampa would fail to respond? Then, of course, there's "Up." "Down." "Help." and, most important, "Do my own self!." She's willing to have help with only the motions or difficulties she can't do herself, and no more. For example, I can put her shoes through the leg-holes of her diaper-panties, but she will hike them up herself. Or I can unclip the belts in her infant seat, but I'm not to slip the clips free or move them away from her arms.

A few hundred feet from her home, there's a small escarpment of earth about 20 feet tall that has been faced with 2 and 3-foot boulders. Analise and Aaron had already taken Grampa Harrelson there, and I didn't know where they'd gone. Miriam took me by the hand, and led me all the way. She obviously was going someplace definite, a place she knew about. When we got there, she said, "Carry down."

Um. Urk. OK, I carried her in my arms as I climbed down this small, 50-degree headwall.

At the bottom was her neighbor Lila, who looked the same age. They plopped down on the grass, 2 small blonde ladies in pink dresses, their soles touching -- and compared shoes! Women! Lila's dad Matt explained that Lila had picked out new shoes yesterday - tried out every one in the store, he said, took an hour, then picked the purple ones. Women! It can't be nurture, it must be nature.

Then, the conversation over, she came to me and said, "Climb stairs."

Um. Urk. OK, I carried her in my arms back up the boulders.

She stood at the top for a minute, then turned to the boulders, held her hands up, and said, "Jump." I detected, I thought, a hint of a Daddy-ish activity. Um. Urk. OK, I grabbed her little hands with my fingers, and swooped her up in the air, stepped off the cliff, and set her down one bolder. "Again." And so we worked our way back down the headwall, one bolder at a time. This is possibly not something a responsible older man should do, but I was careful with my own balance, and the daily half-hour bike rides paid off in leg strength."

At the bottom, she turned around, still holding my hands, and said, "Climb." Aha! Urk. Um... She walked up the boulders holding onto my hands, leaning back toward me for convenience. Now it's clear that Daddy has spent quite a bit of time out here. And I was getting used to the wall.

Meanwhile, Aaron and Analise were playing hide and seek amongst the boulders. It turns out that if you are very small, you can wiggle a little and fit down inside the fissures between the rocks. It is slightly alarming to the grandfathers to watch the disappearance, but they were obviously practiced.

And in the end, we went off the everyone's favorite German restaurant and dined, and then we all wandered off to our respective beds.